More Americans have moved into upper-middle-class incomes over the past several decades (source paywalled; alternative source), with new research suggesting that group has grown sharply while the lower and core middle class have shrunk. The Wall Street Journal reports: In 2024, about 31% of Americans were part of the upper middle class, up from about 10% in 1979, according to a report released this year by the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute. There is no single, standard definition of middle class, or upper middle class, and what counts as a hefty income in one city can feel paltry in another. The AEI report, by Stephen Rose and Scott Winship, classified a family of three earning $133,000 to $400,000 in 2024 dollars as upper middle class. Households earning more were categorized as rich. The analysis looked just at incomes, not assets such as stocks or real estate.

[...] The gains span generations. Many baby boomers, born to parents who grew up in the Great Depression, are living well on their savings, aided by steady Social Security checks and decades of stock-portfolio gains that they can now tap. Millennials, who everyone worried would be permanently set back by the 2008-09 financial crisis, are earning solid incomes, buying homes and surpassing their parents. Many families are surprised to find that they have moved into this new economic tier, and see themselves as comfortable, not rich. They tend to have jobs that are white collar but not flashy -- think accountants, not tech founders.

This doesn't mean that all Americans are climbing the ladder. Entrenched inflation and higher prices on major necessities have pushed many families closer to the financial edge, or locked them out of homeownership. Those costs weigh on high-earning families too, and for many are the reason they don't feel wealthy. The AEI report divided families into five different groups by income. Three groups were in the middle: lower middle class, core middle class and upper middle class. The authors found that more families now fall into the two highest-earning groups -- upper middle class and rich -- and fewer fall into the three lower-earning categories.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Halter, a New Zealand agtech startup now valued at $2 billion, has raised $220 million to expand its AI-powered cattle management system. "Halter is now valued at $2 billion following the Series E, which was led by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund with participation from Blackbird, DCVC, Bond, Bessemer, and several others," reports Inc. From the report: alter plans to use the funding to expand its existing footprint in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand, as well as to grow into new markets such as Ireland, the U.K., and parts of North and South America. The round is one of the biggest to-date in the industry, and comes amid growing adoption of the technology among U.S. ranchers. According to Halter, U.S. ranchers have erected some 60,000 miles of virtual fencing since the company's launch in 2024.

Halter's technology works through a system of solar-powered collars and in-pasture towers that collect data -- some 6,000 data points per collar per minute -- from grazing cattle and feed it into a cloud-based platform and app for farmers. The collars are ergonomically designed to be comfortable for the cattle wearing them, and leverage AI to play audio cues or vibrate when it is time to move to a different grazing location or if they step outside of a predetermined zone. The collars can also deliver an electric pulse if an animal does not respond.

Halter's app also creates a digital twin of a ranch, which essentially means a digital replica that leverages real-time data to accurately reflect conditions. Farmers can consult the app to check on their herd, or fence, and move cattle with just a few clicks. Halter also has a proprietary algorithm that it calls a "Cowgorithm" trained on seven billion hours of animal behavior. Altogether, this technology is meant to make ranchers' lives easier when herding cattle, help them save money on building physical fencing, and provide insights about pasture management to improve soil health and pasture productivity. Halter says some 2,000 farmers and ranchers currently use its tech worldwide.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mike Masnick points out that the recent New Mexico court ruling against Meta has some bad implications for end-to-end encryption, and security in general:

If the “design choices create liability” framework seems worrying in the abstract, the New Mexico case provides a concrete example of where it leads in practice.

One of the key pieces of evidence the New Mexico attorney general used against Meta was the company’s 2023 decision to add end-to-end encryption to Facebook Messenger. The argument went like this: predators used Messenger to groom minors and exchange child sexual abuse material. By encrypting those messages, Meta made it harder for law enforcement to access evidence of those crimes. Therefore, the encryption was a design choice that enabled harm.

The state is now seeking court-mandated changes including “protecting minors from encrypted communications that shield bad actors.”

Yes, the end result of the New Mexico ruling might be that Meta is ordered to make everyone’s communications less secure. That should be terrifying to everyone. Even those cheering on the verdict.

End-to-end encryption protects billions of people from surveillance, data breaches, authoritarian governments, stalkers, and domestic abusers. It’s one of the most important privacy and security tools ordinary people have. Every major security expert and civil liberties organization in the world has argued for stronger encryption, not weaker.

But under the “design liability” theory, implementing encryption becomes evidence of negligence, because a small number of bad actors also use encrypted communications. The logic applies to literally every communication tool ever invented. Predators also use the postal service, telephones, and in-person conversation. The encryption itself harms no one. Like infinite scroll and autoplay, it is inert without the choices of bad actors ­- choices made by people, not by the platform’s design.

The incentive this creates goes far beyond encryption, and it’s bad. If any product improvement that protects the majority of users can be held against you because a tiny fraction of bad actors exploit it, companies will simply stop making those improvements. Why add encryption if it becomes Exhibit A in a future lawsuit? Why implement any privacy-protective feature if a plaintiff’s lawyer will characterize it as “shielding bad actors”?

And it gets worse. Some of the most damaging evidence in both trials came from internal company documents where employees raised concerns about safety risks and discussed tradeoffs. These were played up in the media (and the courtroom) as “smoking guns.” But that means no company is going to allow anyone to raise concerns ever again. That’s very, very bad.

In a sane legal environment, you want companies to have these internal debates. You want engineers and safety teams to flag potential risks, wrestle with difficult tradeoffs, and document their reasoning. But when those good-faith deliberations become plaintiff’s exhibits presented to a jury as proof that “they knew and did it anyway,” the rational corporate response is to stop putting anything in writing. Stop doing risk assessments. Stop asking hard questions internally.

The lesson every general counsel in Silicon Valley is learning right now: ignorance is safer than inquiry. That makes everyone less safe, not more.

The essay has a lot more: about Section 230, about competition in this space, about the myopic nature of the ruling. Go read it.

Niet elke cover is geslaagd, maar Korn doet hier een behoorlijk goede Alice in Chains. Het gaat over drugs, over het vervallen in oude verslavingen, naar aanleiding van de dood van Andrew Wood, zanger van Mother Love Bone in 1990, ten gevolge van een overdosis.

Into the flood again
Same old trip it was back then
So I made a big mistake
Try to see it once my way…

I’ve been hearing nothing but good things about Ben Lerner’s new novel Transcription (Amazon) which comes out tomorrow. From the book’s description:

What unfolds from this dreamlike circumstance is the unforgettable story of the triangle formed by Thomas, Max, and the narrator, and an exploration of fathers and sons, male friendship and rivalry, and the challenges of parenting in a burning world. One of the first great novels about the early days of COVID, it is also a brilliant meditation on those technologies that enrich or impoverish our connection to one another, that store or obliterate memory. Full of startling insight, but written with the intensity of a séance, Lerner shows us how the air is full of messages, full of ghosts. Ultimately Transcription demonstrates what only a work of fiction can record.

And the cover is great:

I read Lerner’s 10:04 years ago and really liked it…I might pick this one up (and at only 144 pages, I might actually finish it).¹

More reading: Ben Lerner and the Impossible Interview, The Gentle Parenting Of Ben Lerner’s ‘Transcription’, A Novel as Slim as an iPhone Has a Lot to Say About Technology, Ben Lerner’s Latest Is a Strange and Brilliant Attempt to Resurrect the Novel, and Ben Lerner’s Big Feelings.

1. I’ve not had good luck with reading lately. Lots of audiobooks but I haven’t read more than 20-30 pages of an actual book since returning from Japan in November. ↩

Tags: Ben Lerner · books · Transcription

A visual history of exploring the far side of the Moon. “The Moon is tidally locked, meaning that only one side of the Moon ever faces the Earth. [For millenia,] there was an entire half of our natural satellite that no human had ever seen before.”

T.Marko has added a photo to the pool:

Through a quiet street-side window, a small ramen shop reveals its late-night rhythm. The chef works with calm precision while customers wait in silence, absorbed in the moment. Warm light spills into the night, framing an intimate slice of everyday life and human connection.

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

CISA added the flaw to KEV after Fortinet confirmed exploitation in the wild

Fortinet released an emergency patch over the weekend for a critical FortiClient Enterprise Management Server (EMS) bug believed to be under attack since at least March 31.…

Kanye West, ofwel Ye, staat in juni op het programma als hoofdact op een festival in Londen. Antisemitische acties en uitspraken van afgelopen jaar leidden tot toenemende druk op de Britse regering om hem te weren.

De ‘lei’ is hét symbool van Hawaï, maar de meeste komen inmiddels uit Thailand. Sommige native Hawaïaanse politici willen dat veranderen, maar ze lopen tegen dezelfde barrières aan als Trump bij zijn heffingen. „Wie gaat dit hier maken?”

De dieselprijs is in Duitsland in het paasweekend gestegen naar een recordhoogte van gemiddeld 2,44 euro per liter, maakte de autovereniging ADAC bekend. Nederlandse automobilisten betalen echter nog altijd fors meer. Zij moeten gemiddeld 2,80 euro neertellen, 36 cent meer dan in Duitsland.

Voor een liter Euro95 betalen de Duitsers nu 2,19 euro. In Nederland is de adviesprijs voor Euro95 vorige week gestegen tot 2,595 euro per liter, ruim 40 cent meer dan in Duitsland.

Vorige week nam de Duitse regering een wet aan die tankstations beperkt tot één prijsaanpassing per dag, vanwege de stijgende olieprijzen door de oorlog in het Midden-Oosten. Desondanks blijven de prijzen aan de pomp records breken.

Diesel werd in Nederland afgelopen vrijdag in een klap 10 cent duurder. Zaterdag steeg de prijs opnieuw. Nederlandse ondernemers- en transportorganisaties dringen al langer aan op snelle overheidsmaatregelen om de impact van de torenhoge brandstofprijzen op het bedrijfsleven te beperken.

BEIROET (ANP/DPA) - Bij de jongste aanvallen van Israël op het buurland Libanon zijn in maart en april al rond de 1500 doden en meer dan 4600 gewonden gevallen volgens het ministerie van Gezondheid. Onder de doden waren volgens het Libanese ministerie 57 mensen die medische hulp boden.

Het ministerie spreekt van 1497 doden tussen 2 maart en 6 april, maar maandag zijn er opnieuw slachtoffers gevallen bij de Israëlische aanvallen.

Israël zegt in de tegenaanval te zijn, nadat de sjiitische Libanese beweging Hezbollah 2 maart weer was begonnen met raketbeschietingen op Israël. Er zijn al 6000 projectielen afgeschoten volgens Israël en de helft vanuit het zuiden van Libanon onder de rivier de Litani. Israël wil het gebied tussen de rivier en de Israëlische noordgrens innemen. Een aantal Israëlische politici wil de rivier voortaan als noordgrens en de Libanese bevolking verdrijven.

De verkiezingscampagne zit erop, maar het echte werk moet nog beginnen. Voor deze nieuwgekozen raadsleden is straks alles nieuw: van hun eerste debat tot aan een eerste motie indienen. Wie zijn de raadsleden en wat hopen ze te bereiken voor hun gemeente?

And now around the moon. Today Artemis II is circling the moon, taking its crew farther from Earth than any prior mission, before looping back towards home.

The itinerary today includes: 1:30 p.m.: The science officer in the Mission Control Center at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston will brief the crew on their science goals for the upcoming flyby.
1:56 p.m.: The Artemis II crew is expected to surpass the record previously set by the Apollo 13 crew in 1970 for the farthest humans have ever traveled from Earth. 
2:45 p.m.: Lunar observations begin.
6:44 p.m.: Mission control expects to temporarily lose communication with the crew as the Orion spacecraft passes behind the Moon. 
6:45 p.m.: During "Earthset," Earth will glide behind the Moon from Orion's perspective.
7:02 p.m.: Orion reaches its closest approach to the Moon at 4,070 miles above the surface.
7:07 p.m.: Crew reach their maximum distance from Earth during the mission (252,706 miles).
7:25 p.m.: "Earthrise" marks Earth coming back into view on the opposite edge of the Moon.
7:25 p.m.: Mission control will re-acquire communication with the astronauts.  
8:35-9:32 p.m.: During a solar eclipse, the Sun will pass behind the Moon from the crew's perspective.
9:20 p.m.: Lunar observations conclude. You can follow on the AROW visualization or by NASA's livestream. Another NASA YouTube broadcast. Artemis is transmitting video, low-res, alas. Space.com live coverage plus their timeline. Recent Artemis II previously.

Sydney brick pit becomes arena in fight to save iconic frog. Chytrid fungus has been linked to the extinction of 90 frog species around the world. In a long-abandoned Sydney brick pit, a new front has opened in the fight to save an iconic species.

New interviews and closely guarded documents shed light on the persistent doubts about the head of OpenAI. (archive.org) The New Yorker profiles Sam Altman in an extensive article that once again proves Betteridge's Law.

Archaeologists have long known that the ancient peoples of North America—not unlike us—played a lot of games. Going back millennia, cultures around the world developed myriad ways to keep entertained, and for a long time, it was thought that the first dice ever used could be traced to the ancient Eastern European and Near East cultures of Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and the Caucasus. But according to a new paper by Robert Madden, published by Cambridge University Press, games of chance developed much, much earlier than originally thought—halfway around the world.

Researchers previously believed that the earliest dice originated about 5,500 years ago, but Madden shares that examples excavated in North America date back as far as the Late Pleistocene—the Ice Age. Among the oldest reported examples are a few found in modern-day Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico. The rich archaeological sites in these places are associated with the Folsom Culture, representing a dispersed hunter-gatherer lifeway that extended across the North American West, Southwest, and Great Plains around 12,000 years ago.

“The dice tend to show up in liminal spaces where you have a lot of high mobility,” Madden told Live Science. “It might have something to do with how separated these people are and the need to relate to people you don’t see very often.”

In the report, Madden also says that “the making and using of dice represent humans’ first known efforts to intentionally generate, observe, and record streams of controlled, random events…” He adds that, possibly for the first time, people were comprehending patterns or regularities in probability—a kind of precursor to understanding what we now call the law of large numbers. Anthropologists consider this to be “a crucial early step in humanity’s evolving discovery and understanding of randomness and the probabilistic nature of the universe.”

Madden compared hundreds of examples found across the American West with a comprehensive, several-hundred-page publication called Games of the North American Indians, published in 1907 as part of an annual report by the Bureau of American Ethnology. It’s currently available in a two-volume edition from Bison Books.

You might also enjoy seeing what may be the world’s oldest crayon.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article 12,000 Years Ago, Native Americans Were Playing Games of Chance with Handmade Dice appeared first on Colossal.